The Short Sperrin: The RAF's 'just in case" bomber

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
08/23/2017 at 12:35 • Filed to: planes you've (probably) never heard of, Planelopnik, wingspan

From the Planes You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of Department of Wingspan , we bring you the Short Sperrin .

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Though the turbojet engine predates the Second World War, it wasn’t until spring of 1944 that it started to be used operationally. By the end of the war, it was clear that the jet engine was the powerplant of the future, but aircraft designs that could make full use of the speed provided by the engines had yet to arrive. In England, the so-called V bombers—the swept wing !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and the delta wing !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! —were in development, but the RAF decided to hedge their bets on the new bombers by using the fallback position of a more traditional bomber, one that had straight wings and hearkened back more to the piston-powered bombers of WWII rather than looked forward to the jet age. That “just in case” bomber was the Short Sperrin.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , or Shorts as they were commonly known, is not a well known name to the casual aircraft enthusiast. Founded in 1908 in Battersea near London, Shorts eventually set up their headquarters in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1936. They are credited with building the first aircraft to be produced in numbers and the world’s first successful twin-engine aircraft, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . By the 1930s, Shorts began to make a name for themselves with the production of flying boats, and produced the RAF’s first four-engine bomber, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which was also the largest bomber flown by the RAF in WWII. In the 1950s, Shorts continued to do pioneering work in aircraft design, and produced radical aircraft that pushed the bounds of aircraft design.

In 1947, the Air Ministry published requirements for a modern bomber to replace the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the standard British piston-powered bomber of the early postwar period. But the requirements for the new bomber were ambitious, and the Ministry feared that the specifications might not be met in time. Shorts had been one of four companies to respond to an earlier specification, B.14/46, which called for a four-engine medium jet bomber, and theirs was selected as the fallback design should the advanced aircraft suffer delays. Though the Sperrin (named for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in Northern Ireland) was of a very traditional design, it did employ some novel features, most notably its engine placement. At a time when most large British jet aircraft housed their engines in the wing roots, Shorts placed the Sperrin’s four engines in the middle of the wing, one on top of the other. Also, the pilot had no direct control of the aircraft’s contr ol surfaces. Control inputs were passed to a gearbox that moved the surfaces via jack screws.

The first of two prototypes was powered by the first production !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbojet engines and took its maiden flight on August 10, 1951. But with the development of the Vickers Valiant progressing successfully, the Air Ministry threw its weight—and money—behind the Valiant, and chose not to produce the Sperrin. Construction of a second prototype was completed, and while the Sperrin never fulfilled its role as a bomber, it did become an important research aircraft, where it performed critical work into the development of emerging powerplant and weaponry technologies. The Sperrin served as a testbed for experimental engines such as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbojet, and took part in the testing of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . However, despite its usefulness as a testbed, more modern aircraft were waiting in the wings, aircraft that employed swept and delta wings and more advanced avionics, and both Sperrins were scrapped by the late 1950s.

The Sperrin being flown at the Farnborough Airshow with a single de Havilland Gyron engine mounted in the lower left nacelle.

Short Sperrin with a Short Seamew ASW aircraft following close behind.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

More Aircraft You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

If you enjoy these posts, please join in the conversation and let me know. If you missed an episode, you can find them all at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Other aircraft also-rans can be found at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

DISCUSSION (14)

RallyWrench > ttyymmnn
08/23/2017 at 13:22

I absolutely love those nacelles!

ttyymmnn > RallyWrench
08/23/2017 at 13:30

I think it’s an awesome aircraft. All of those early jet bombers from the 50s fascinate me.

RallyWrench > ttyymmnn
08/23/2017 at 13:38

It certainly looks the part, super clean lines, very elegant. Definitely a great era, and I think the larger aircraft look better than most fighters of the time.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn
08/23/2017 at 13:49

The picture with the Seamew trailing is a nice find. The Sperrin is certainly an interesting looking aircraft. It’s funny how many planes you can recognize the country they were developed in even if you know nothing about the plane.

ttyymmnn > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much
08/23/2017 at 14:08

Finding that photo was serendipitous, as I had just written about the Seamew the previous week. I could do an entire series on Shorts aircraft. They had some really interesting birds. I think you could ID the country of origin for many aircraft. There is definitely a design ethos that permeates each country.

ttyymmnn > RallyWrench
08/23/2017 at 14:08

The 50s is, by far, my favorite era of aircraft development.

WilliamsSW > ttyymmnn
08/23/2017 at 14:55

Wow- so this was the aircraft that pioneered jackscrews to move control surfaces? Neat!

And the engine / intake configuration is interesting, to say the least. Are the upper and lower engines significantly different? Appears to me that the upper engines would have less airflow.

punkgoose17 > ttyymmnn
08/23/2017 at 15:09

Wow that is a beautiful aircraft. Thank you for sharing!

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > ttyymmnn
08/23/2017 at 15:56

It’s almost like something of an alternate universe. And really it is, it was developed if an alternate timeline had come about, one where delta wings and other advanced airplane tech had hit major hurdle.

This would be an awesome aircraft for a tv show like Man in the High Castle, as it too is an alternate universe.

ttyymmnn > Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs
08/23/2017 at 16:14

Well put. It’s almost like something you’d see in Buck Rogers. It’s the future, but not quite the future. I hadn’t realized it until now, but it’s almost like scaled up Gloster Meteor . There are even some Meteors still flying today for Martin Baker as testbeds for ejection seats.

ttyymmnn > punkgoose17
08/23/2017 at 16:15

My pleasure! It’s worth digging through the Wiki article on Short Brothers to look at some of the aircraft they came up with, particularly in the 50s and 60s. Some really forward-thinking stuff. I could do a whole series on the Shorts aircraft that never entered production.

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > ttyymmnn
08/24/2017 at 11:16

Oh wow, the Gloster does look similar!

Buck Rogers isn’t something I’m familiar with, but based on a quick google search it looks like a good fit.

I really find myself wishing there were a market/purpose for these particular airplanes, but alas it probably just doesn’t make engineering sense compared to what’s out there. It just looks so damn cool, especially in the that second picture you posted, it looks so impressive.

ttyymmnn > Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs
08/24/2017 at 11:30

There was a lot of fascinating work that was taking place in England at this time. Take a little time to read about the Brabazon Committee . It’s what gave us the de Havilland Comet .

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > ttyymmnn
08/24/2017 at 12:40

Reading about the Comet eventually brought me to the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod, that thing looks all kinds of awesome too, haha.

Kinja'd!!!